Closed Pawprints in the Snow (Taylani)

[Isedan Autumnrun]

It was going to move! Any second now, it was going t- There, it moved!

Her paws snapped out to grab it only for a great plop of snow to land on her head and make her yeowl again, jumping back and rubbing her front leg over her head and ears, her tongue licking at the ice that clung to her whiskers. Tay had taken the opportunity to dash away, Issy straightening after she got herself cleaned up for the most part and watching her with tail waving. Oh ho, it was so on.

Instead of following her that way, the serval turned and headed around the other side of the tent, long legs stepping over and through the line that held the canvas and poles in place, keeping close to the side of the amethyst material. As the corner neared, the feline lowered to her belly some and snuck her head around to peek at Tay on the other side, the noisy laughter of the other woman giving her away. She slunk through the drift closer and closer, creeping like the silent predator she naturally was and then stopping just behind the waiting woman.

She would pause there with her tail flapping side to side then turn her head up to the tent next to theirs, near where Tay stood, and grinned inwardly. That was just perfect! Snow had collected at its edge and it would only take a little effort to encourage it down; and Issy had the perfect tool for that without even having to alert Tay to what she was doing.

Slinking to the base of the canvas, the serval crouched, her eyes on a point just under the tent edge. Her shoulders bunched and her muscles in legs tightened, ears concentrating forwards, before it was all released in a sharp spring upwards. Her leaping ability was displayed finely, easily making the four foot hop and smacking her hind paws against it as she deftly twisted in the air to land back on the ground. Snow crunched under her paws and she shifted her head again to see if it had been enough to loosen the cold fluff and send it spilling down onto her poor target.

[Taylani]

Taylani stood quietly, trying to get her breathing back under control. First one hand rose to press against her chest, huffing breath visible on the air, the second going to her belly. Her ribs almost hurt from the laughter, so unused was her body to such a good solid laugh after so long without. Her cheeks were pink, her nose was a little runny, but her blue eyes finally sparkled and danced in a way that no one in Endrykas has ever seen.

Her ears were not as keen as the servals, nor were her hunting skills...for that matter she wasn't that stealthy either. But she knew enough to stop running and to hold still until she could spot where the other went. It was to this end that she was standing so still..when a heavy plop of snow engulfed her body. Frozen water pour over her, falling inside her cloak causing the dancer to shriek and jump to try and shake it out.

Spinning on her heel, Taylani darts after the serval, running and pumping her legs through the snow. Tufts of white powder flight up behind her swift moving feet. Though the serval was too fast and she ended up having to slow, and plop back on the ground. Trying to catch her breath, while at the same time as laugh and warm herself by shaking occasionally.

"Truce!" Taylani called between gasps, "I call a truce!"

[Isedan Autumnrun]

Issy could relate to the lack of joy in her life right now. Since Lukyc's death, she had not really been happy. A few smiles could be spared when working with Dastina, but for the most part, the kelvic had been completely hapless. But now, dancing in the snow with the other woman, she felt a kindling flame of delight fanned by hearing the others laughter.

Issy's own tiring was catching up and she slowed to a halt ahead of where the ex-dancer eventually collapsed, turning to look back at the woman and mewl emphatically. For a moment, Issy just stood there, her muzzle slightly open and a quiet pant fogging the air with her breath; then, the feline strode over to Tay, eyeing her lap as she moved, and stopped next to the woman. The noisy purr had returned and the cat stepped forward, heedless of personal boundaries, to lay the others lap, her own warmer body snuggling up against the modest baby bump she had and even licking at the fabric in acknowledgement.

She curled her hips against Tay's then for balance and pushed into a sitting position, neck craning up to the humans to stare with wild eyes at the other, silent but for the purr that vibrated through her whole body. There was gratitude in those glinting orbs as Issy leaned up a little further and touched Tay's nose. Hot breath spread out from her dark nostrils for a moment before the serval relaxed her neck and chose, instead, to flop against the humans chest, nuzzling compassionately thereupon.

She was so glad Tay had ran into her, now, so glad that she had chosen to play and that Cotice was not at the pavilion to stop her. It lightened her soul.

[Taylani]

Taylani didn't stop to think how odd it was that the serval was a female human in another form. That as Isedan draped herself across her lap, that it might be a little awkward if she was in human form. Taylani was a tall woman, so the length of the serval was easily adapted to. Her arms fell to encircle the warm body of the cat, and she too felt like purring though she didn't have the proper vocal chords to do so.

When Isedan stretched upwards, her eyes linking with Tay's blue orbs, Taylani felt a connection with the other captive, not a bond not a real thing but an emotional connection. They were together in this, albeit with different circumstances but they were together in a strange land, filled with strange people, separated far from their loved ones. Fallan claimed to love her, he had spent much of the cold season trying to prove it, but Taylani felt only his desire to keep her there. To keep her body his, that he might think that was love, but Taylani didn't feel the connection to him as family, not yet. With the cat, it was different she was family in the way women belong to a sisterhood, one that was strengthened by their shared struggle.

Tears pooled in Taylani's eyes, and one hand raised to scratch the cat behind the ears, her head curving to lay her cheek on top of Isenden's furry head. Silently she accepts and offers comfort, stroking the pelt softly, enjoying the warmth and the togetherness that Isendan provided.

[Isedan Autumnrun]

That sense of 'Safe' she had with Tay had just rose a little more as she sat and leaned against her, purring out her satisfaction at the connection. She could not do this with the Autumnrun residents. Some of them wanted to try and connect with her like this, seeing value in bonding with a kelvic, but Issy did not want that with any of them, not with what was currently going on. The thought of Bonding with anyone right now was as far from the wounded shifters conscious mind as it could be right now.

So it was she satisfied herself in nuzzle and purring and rubbing at the other, though every so often she would drop her head and lift her paw and lick at the skin between her paws and over her wrists. But then Tay layed her head atop hers and scratched at her ears. A shiver ran up her spine until the purr softened into something gentler, one of understanding and acceptance.

Oh Tay...

It's too soon, his death too near. And this trouble we're in already, I can't yet, not yet. I must find a way out and away from that bastard, and let my love go. Maybe then, but...not yet.

Of course, Tay wouldn't be able to hear her thoughts, only feel the warm comfort that rested part in her lap and part against her chest, content. I think I'll find a way for their family to move in time with yours. I should like to come visit more, even if just to chat...I'm sure Dastina will let me work from your tent just as much from hers. That stupid horse certainly doesn't let me work from his back.

Her thoughts trailing now, Issy leaned away from Tay and looked up at the womans face, mewling softly before turning to point her head at the tent once more. It was time they went inside instead of sit in the snow.

[Taylani]

Though Taylani enjoyed the snuggling with the serval, the warmth of the animal and the gentle comfort provided, her bottom was growing wet from the snow, as was her legs. Her nose was red and runny, and her cheeks a bright red as well. So when Isedan so pointedly looked toward the tent, Taylani was only more then happy to shift, and squirm until she was up right moving slowly toward the tent. She had no idea of course what Isedan was thinking, only that she hoped that she had gotten the same measure of comfort as Taylani herself had. There was so much about Kelvics that Taylani didn't know.

Bending she slips in to the relative warmth of the tent, untying the cloak to shake off the snow, preparing it for Isedan if she so chose to shift to her human form. Then she moved over to the soup, smiling as it had began to bubble and boil. It still would be a few chimes before the vegetables and the meat would be cooked fully but she doesn't mind. Using a spoon she stirs the pot carefully before sitting once more on one of the cushions.

"What are you planning on doing Isedan? Not about, him, but just for yourself?" Taylani asked, whether or not the serval was a woman now or still a cat. "I am learning from Sharika Nightsong, I am learning midwifery but I might learn more. I found..it is interesting, and I haven't been interested in anything since.." Her voice trails off, before she smiled. She was dangerously close to talking about her Before time, something she had vowed to avoid doing.

[Isedan Autumnrun]

"Doing?" Issy said, wrapping the cloak around her now that they were back inside. "That's a loaded question, I should think."

The kelvic had waited until Tay tended to the soup before she changed, the colors a little off and the brilliance of the light not quite as bright as before, but it was a barely noticeable change in pattern and only because Issy was really a little too far along to go shifting as much as she might have been able to before. As winter wore on, her opportunities to would grow fewer and the difficulty would increase. It put a strain on herself, though she could never have explained why. The serval only knew it had something to do with the pregnancy.

"Besides finding a way out of the situation I'm in, I want to go home, if nothing more than to find where we last were before he..." She trailed a little, disheartened by the thought. "Say my goodbyes and all and collect any of our belongings. I'm not sure where I'd go from there, though; maybe back to Syliras or Zeltiva. There was a young man in Zeltiva who had dogs; he was a nice sort. Maybe see if my parents are still around. They worked the fields for Syliras." Just thinking about it made her even more sad and the kelvic pulled the cloak more closely around her shoulders and cleared her throat.

"But I need to be free of the burdens of this place first."

It was still a struggle to think of the babe she carried as her child, hers, not Cotice's or Endrykas'. Hers. She felt no maternal connection to it whatsoever and even if she carried to term, Issy did not want it. It was a bane to her, not a boon. "Find some peace of mind and my courage again. With Lukyc's death, I've felt...I don't know how you would describe it as a human." She looked at the soup, thinking how out of place potatos looked in the broth. "I've felt like I'm walking in a shadow and no matter how much I mark the way, I can never get out. I can't smell the way, can't hear it...I'm just. Trapped. Caged."

Her eyes rose to Tay's and she smiled wanly. "It's hard to think of him as dead; missing, maybe, but not dead, eventhough I know he is. I'd never felt such pain before as when our Bond snapped. It was scary."

[Taylani]

Taylani put the spoon back in the pot, listening to Isedan talk. She almost envied the Kelvic's ability to think about life away from Endrykas. She, herself, had thought originally she could distance herself from the child she carried. She never thought that she would be able to accept a child was hers when it was forced upon her. But the day she realized that she was pregnant she knew that she could not distance herself. She couldn't leave this child to be raised without her, and then there were her feelings for Fallan that were so muddled.

She retrieved two bowls from the packs, "Would you like some soup Isedan?" She asked, not waiting for an answer before dipping the ladle into the hot broth and vegetables. She filled both bowls, and put one in front of Isedan with a spoon, and then took one herself. "I am afraid I don't understand much about Kelvics. I have heard that they bond with others but beyond that. What does the bond feel like?" Taylani's curiosity was piqued, though there was almost a strange sadness that Isedan was planning on leaving Endrykas. Of course that was natural that the kelvic would, if not for the messiness of Fallan and her relationship and the child she would have made a bee line back to Syliras as well. That did not make it any easier imagining not being able to go and find Isedan when she wanted.

[Isedan Autumnrun]

"Well, it's hard to explain. The Bond is something that I love and long for. It's part of what I am and why it makes it so hard realizing that my bondmate is gone." She said, finally settling down and accepting the bowl of soup without disagreement. The woman needed the energy it would provide.

"Being bonded is like..." She paused, pushing some carrots around in the broth thoughtfully. "It's like this braid, I guess. We're woven into each others lives, aware of each other without actually intruding. I knew Lukyc was meant for me, and I for him, when he showed up at the field my parents worked in one day, trading furs to the workers in exchange for greens he couldn't get on his expeditions. I didn't fully recognize it until after I turned two what the funny pull on my heart- soul? -really was. It certainly wasn't lust. He was a noble sort, very gentlemanly even when I asked to team up with him the season after my second birthday."

The shifter picked the carrot out of the meal and chomped on it then before continuing. "It took us some three or so seasons to realize what that pull really was. I couldn't stand the thought of being separated from him for more than a day or two and he felt something similar, like a need to protect me. There was love, yes, but it did not start as the love that we found later. Perhaps it was paternal? I don't know, whatever it was, I knew I was meant for him." Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug and she sipped at the soup some more, enjoying the hardiness of it. While it lacked the protein she needed, it would give her some energy.

"I was always aware of him after we did bond, like this shadow at the back of my mind with the same needs of the body but without the thoughts. I always knew what he was feeling, though, his urges, his pain, just as I'm sure he knew mine. I didn't know what he might be thinking, but his scent and emotions usually revealed enough to know. Before he died, I'd begun picking up sensations of his whereabouts." She looked up at Tay and smiled. "If he was just in the next room or on the other side of the street, though I couldn't see him. I could close off my physical senses and just move to him in that way, knowing he would be there when I arrived."

"While there are definitely many kinds of love in the world, I know what he and I had after the bond had matured was not of brother and sister or family, but true blue love. The agony of the breaking is bad enough but he was my lover as much as my bondmate, and I think, had we had another year together, Cheva would have surely laid her mark on us."

It was here that Issy set her spoon back in the bowl and looked up. "I do not think I could handle a bond like that again, Taylani." She said. "Not after how he died and what has happened since then." Surely Tay recalled how she had been in Fall, the nearly destroyed state of what should have been a perfectly healthy woman. She had been far too skinny then and her mind had been nearly ruined.

[Taylani]

Taylani ate slowly, barely tasting the bland vegetables, as she listened to the other speak. Her mind focusing on what the other was saying, quietly contemplating. She didn't understand what it would be like to be so connected with another, it was daunting enough to think of how entwined her life was within Fallan's and his child. Yet she couldn't say that it wouldn't be nice to know what she was feeling, to be able to say with a clean conscious that she was connected to another. Instead of this jaded, half-guilty warm feeling that she felt for Fallan that she couldn't even call love. How could you love someone who had violated all trust?

Sighing she smiled, "Yet you say that as a Kelvic the bond is what you are, can you deny the bond?" For this Taylani understood well, the loss of a loved one makes anyone wary of loving again. The bond sounded so much deeper then simple loving as humans do with humans, but it would probably be the same thing. A shyness of the heart, not wanting to be hurt.

"It is the hurts in life that really forge us, rather then the good points." Taylani says, still pushing a lone potato around in her bowl, not looking quite at the Kelvic. "The good moments, they are good for giving one strength in those hard times..but it is that hardship that defines your character and who you are. Lukyc's death, this .." She waves at their surroundings, "is just life's forge, making us harder, shaping who we are meant to be. It is hard now Isedan, but I am sure when the time is right, you will find another bond mate, when your ready." Taylani finally meets Isedan's eyes, smiling for a tick before she offered to take the bowl from the other.